Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) has announced it's biggest leap in desktop processor performance in over a decade, with its 12th Gen Alder Lake 10nm CPUs ushering in a new hybrid core architecture that uses two different types of cores. With a claimed average performance improvement of 19 percent, significantly better gaming and multi-threaded performance, Intel is aiming to regain the performance crown from AMD's 4th Gen Ryzen CPUs as well as increase its market share.
Top of the stack is the Core i9-12900K, which has eight 'performance' or P-cores, as well as eight 'efficient' E-cores. The former deal with highly demanding workloads, while the latter help to boost multi-threaded performance and handle low priority and background tasks.
The E-cores sit at much lower frequencies than the P-cores, but share a larger smart cache to lower latency. This sits at 30MB for the Core i9-12900K, 25MB for the Core i7-12700K and 20MB for the Core i5-12600K.
The Core i9-12900K sports eight P-cores, which are hyper-threaded, providing 16 threads, and eight E-cores which are not hyper-threaded. So that's 24 threads in total across 16 cores. The Core i7-12700K has the same eight P-cores, but only four E-cores, while the Core i5-12600K has six P-cores and four E-cores.
Intel hasn't left the handling of cores and threads to chance, though, and had actively worked with Microsoft to ensure Windows 11 is honed to work with the new core design. It has also implemented a feature called Thread Director, which adds an additional layer of thread control, ensuring demanding workloads are prioritized on P-cores. You can read more about Thread Director in the link below.
What's new?
New socket and CPU height
Intel introduces LGA1700 with its 12th Gen CPUs - a bigger socket with more pins and wider-spaces cooler mounting holes. The CPUs are not backwards compatible and you'll not be able to use old CPUs in the new socket either - it's all new.
You current CPU cooler will likely need an adapter kit too as the CPU height has lowered. Intel has decreased the die and thermal interface material layers to improve cooling, but while the heatspreader is also thicker, it still means the surface of it sits lower. Thankfully, the adapter kits are usually free from cooler manufacturers, and new coolers are starting to include LGA1700 compatibility as standard.
Z690 chipset
As usual, motherboards will offer a new chipset, with the flagship being Z690. This brings additional PCIe 4.0 chipset lanes, integrated WiFi 6E, a x8 DMI Gen 4.0 link between the CPU and chipset for higher bandwidth and additional USB 3.2 throughput.
New motherboards from manufacturers such as Asus will be available, including the ROG Strix Z690 Hero below.
DDR5
DDR5 memory makes its introduction with 12th Gen CPUs too, however, motherboards will split their compatibility between older DDR4 and DDR5, with many manufacturers offering the same model motherboard, but with either DDR4 or DDR5 compatibility. DDR5 offers faster speeds and more bandwidth than DDR4 memory and also has on-module voltage control.
PCI-E 5.0
Motherboards now support PCI-E 5.0, although unlike AMD's launch of PCI-E 4.0 along with compatible SSDs and graphics cards, lacks any hardware to make much use of it for now.
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